604    NEW-HAMPSHIRE.

By hound or horn, and the partridge brood
Was alone in the leafy solitude;

And the lake where the beaver housed her young,
And the loon’s shrill cry from the border rung,

The Lake whence the Beauteous River flows,

Its fountains fed by Canadian snows.

What were the Labors of Hercules
To the toils of Heroes such as these ?—

Guarding their homes from Savage foes
Cruel as fiends in craft and scorn;

Felling the forest with mighty blows;

Planting the meadow plots with corn;

Hunting the hungry wolf to his lair;

Trapping the panther and prowling bear;

Bridging the river; building the mill
Where the stream had leapt at its frolic will;
Rearing, in faith, by sorrow tried,

The church and the scliool-liouse, side by side;
Fighting the French on the long frontier,

From Louisburg, set in the sea’s domains,

To proud Quebec and the woods that hear
Ohio glide to the sunset plains;

And when rest and comfort they yearned to see,
Risking their all to be nobly free!

Honor and love for the valiant dead!

With reverent breath let their names be read,—
Hiltons, Pepperels, Sullivans, Weares,

Broad is the scroll the list that bears
Of men as ardent, and brave, and true
As ever land, in its peril, knew,

And women of pure and glowing lives,

Meet to be heroes’ mothers and wives!

For not alone for the golden maize,

And the fishers’ spoils from the teeming bays,

And the treasures of forest, aud hill, and mine
They gave their barks to the stormy brine,—
Liberty, Learning, righteous Law
Shone in the vision they dimly saw
Of the Age to come and the Land to be;

And, looking to Heaven, fervently

They labored and longed through the dawning gray

For the blessed break of that larger day!

When the wail of Harvard in sore distress
Came to their ears through the wilderness,—
Harvard, the hope of the Colonies twain
Planted with prayers by the lonely main—

It was loyal, struggling, Portsmouth town